In the end, the twisting and turnings of the squash plant in my garden produced one medium-sized butternut squash and a small one, enough for one meal. Next year I may decide that squash isn’t worth the investment in space, or alternatively I can make a commitment to devote much of the yard to a network of overlapped squash vines and end up with 10 meals, or 20. I made a fall vegetable stew using squash, peeled potatoes, onions, and carrots, braising them in a California chardonnay with a strong taste of apples. For a spice mixture I included cinnamon, cloves, cumin, coriander, and allspice. There were some leeks I’d planted inside garden pots that I used for garnish; they had not been able to grow enough to reach the thickness of grocery store leeks and I treated them like a fall version of spring onions, which is probably fine. The only change I would make next time is to braise the carrots for much longer; carrots do take a long time to cook in comparison to most other vegetables. With the stew I made basmati rice mixed with raisins and spices.

(Photo: Vegetable garden, October.)

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